Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. C MP Monograph ©1996 CLMP The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses is pleased to publish Getting the Word Out— The Power of Publicity as part of our series of monographs on marketing strategies for literary magazines and presses. This series has been generously funded by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. Since 1991, CLMP has directed the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Literary Publishers Market- ing Development Program which has provided marketing grants to thirty-six literary maga- zines and presses. Participants in the Literary Publishers Marketing Development Program receive intensive marketing training and assistance in developing comprehensive marketing plans tailored to each grantee’s organization. The goal of this program is to help magazines and presses build larger and more varied audiences for the literature they publish. From the beginning of the program, it was clear to CLMP that a wide range of other publish- ers would greatly appreciate and benefit from this kind of marketing training. That led to developing this series of monographs as one way to disseminate marketing information. As a complement to the monographs, CLMP is also holding marketing workshops throughout the country. Getting the Word Out augments a guide that CLMP published in 1992, Publicity Basics: A Guide for Literary Magazines and Presses, which was a collection of publicity related articles and resources. Much of the information in Publicity Basics remains pertinent (although contact names and addresses may have changed), but Getting the Word Out takes an additional step and discusses the “how-to” of making the most of your publicity resources. (Publicity Basics is still available from CLMP). In addition to Getting the Word Out, CLMP has published monographs on circulation development, magazine fulfillment, retail promotions, reader surveys, textbook adoptions, and planning for marketing. These monographs are written to serve as primers in the subjects they cover and to present marketing methods that can be implemented by novices as well as more experienced publishers. The authors are professional marketing consultants who have worked with the Literary Publishers Marketing Development Program and publishers who participated in the program. ---CLMP Getting the Word Out— The Power of Publicity by Mary Bisbee-Beek Mary Bisbee-Beek has When faced with having to define publicity (and after staring at the computer screen for quite a while), been involved in I realized that it was harder to explain what I do for a living than I had expected. In general, publicity is publishing for 15 years. In 1992 she opened her the result of defining your book or literary magazine to the media or public. Publicity efforts can be as own publicity and simple as describing what you publish to someone or as in-depth as writing a press release, setting up a marketing consulting tour and putting together an advertising plan. office, Beeksbee Books, in St. Paul, Minnesota. There are various ways to approach publicity, but many of the initial steps are the same. The Power of Mary works with both for-profit and not-for- Publicity is a guide to some simple ways to publicize your books or magazine. All efforts should be profit presses to help tailored to your budget, your level of creativity and energy, but most importantly, it must be tailored to them write press releases, each individual book or magazine you publicize. negotiate feature articles, arrange author tours, Much of publicity can seem mundane and perfunctory. The fun part is the conversations you have with work with the media and to develop marketing the media, bookstores and authors about your titles and competing titles; it’s also the creativity that can plans. Her literary go into publicity. One publicist working on a book of short stories about all types of personal clients include Graywolf relationships decided to place an ad for a reading of the book in the personals column of the local Press, Curbstone Press newspaper! It worked— over twenty people attended who might not have heard about the reading and Kaya Press. otherwise. However, before such creative publicity efforts will work, a number of basic strategies need to be in place. 2 CLMP Monograph The Power of Publicity has been written for both the literary magazine and literary press. While the idea behind publicity is the same for both, the strategies may be different. Therefore, in certain sections there will be a PRESS category and a MAGAZINE category. This does not mean you should read one and skip the other! Ideas presented in both sections may be adapted to your organization. Certain activities, such as reading tours, initially seem more suited to books than magazines but, depending upon the circumstances, can be implemented successfully by both. Why Is Publicity Important? Just as a publisher As a publicist, I always assume that literary publishers are committed to publishing the best material would never consider and also to seeing that material reach as many readers as possible. Part of that commitment is working to not rigorously editing a manuscript or journal, have the publishing industry and the public recognize your books or magazine. you should not leave publicity out of your I’ve heard people say, “I’m too small to be worried about publicity,” but publicity is one of the most marketing efforts. affordable marketing activities. You may not be able to afford direct mail or elaborate bookstore displays, but you can make a low-cost investment in your current publishing program by sending out press releases and other support material, and the name recognition gained will benefit your future publications. However, publicity does take time, and you’re not going to get a story about your books or magazine for every press release sent out because publicity is about building a name for yourself. One relatively new literary magazine actively sought out publicity in major newspapers of cities where writers they were publishing lived. They targeted columnists in both Boston and Pittsburgh by first calling and presenting the columnist with a local angle. They then followed up by sending an issue, a press release and a side-bar article which told the story of the local author. All this was followed up with a personal visit. Both columnists ran stories. The one in the Boston paper generated 173 responses; the one in the Pittsburgh paper generated none. Why? The columnist in Boston had invested himself in the story and didn’t treat it like just any other news item. By working closely with the reviewer or columnist to generate their genuine interest in the story, you can hopefully end up with stories like the one that ran in Boston. And when such a story does run, the results usually compensate for all the time and energy you’ve put into it. A positive review or feature article will send people out looking for your book or writing in to subscribe to, or at least purchase a copy of, your magazine. Publicity— Who Can Do It? Often the most effective people to describe a book or magazine are closest to it— the editor or publisher. And once they are familiar with the basic ins and outs of publicity, they make great publicists. However, if you or a staff person do not have the time to dedicate to publicity, many of the tasks discussed in this monograph can be delegated to an intern or volunteer, as long as you help plan and direct the publicity efforts so that they complement your organization’s other marketing activities. To generate publicity, people only need a good telephone manner and a clear idea of what the books/ magazines are about. If you don’t normally work with students or volunteers, local colleges are great sources of people studying public relations or marketing who might enjoy the “real life” experience offered by your project. Whether you, an intern, a full-time marketing staff person or even a professional publicist works to generate publicity, there are other people whose cooperation you need— the people you hope will “give” you the publicity. Most often this means the media, but booksellers and librarians are also important. CLMP Monograph 3 If you only have the resources to develop face-to-face relationships with the media, bookstores and libraries in your area, you can still send publicity materials to people all across the country. Use your contacts, even those contacts you don’t know you have. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. Your staff, board members, authors, friends, even other publishers with whom you are friendly probably have contacts that might benefit your publicity efforts. An editor of a literary magazine recently encouraged a colleague across the country to let her review one of the books I was working on for his weekly paper. This allowed for coast-to-coast reviewing and greatly expanded the potential audience for the book. Find out who you know (however indirectly) and make it work for you by engaging their help. Sending out Support Material Sending out informa- An all-purpose brochure may come in handy at conferences, when visiting bookstores or even at your tion about your press or magazine is the most family reunion. For publicity purposes, however, you need something more— you need materials aimed basic way to educate at getting someone so interested in your books or magazines that they want to go out and tell other people people about your about them. organization, develop relationships with the media and hopefully generate publicity. Support Material Support material is, simply, any material used to publicize a book or magazine. Generating support material does not automatically mean spending large sums of money.